Minutes

Meeting purpose / St. Martin’s Parent Council Annual General Meeting
Meeting location / St. Martin’s primary school / School district / East Lothian
Meeting date / 13th September 2017 / Meeting time / 6pm – 7.45pm
Presiding Chair: / Katie MacFarlane
Attendees: / K. Macfarlane, K, Masterton, J. Coyle, S. Dales, S. McDonald. T. Campbell.
Apologies: / J. Fettes, C. Hutchison, M. Hutchison.
points of action
Welcome: / The parent council extended a warm welcome to Sheila Dales joining the Parent Council as the parish church representative.
Previous minutes approval: / Motioned by chairperson, seconded and carried without alteration.
Agenda approval: / Motioned by chairperson, seconded and carried without alteration.
Head Teacher’s report: / Please see Annex A for full report
  • Review return visit
  • Staffing
  • Education Scotland
  • PEF
  • Nursery Visit
  • AOB from HT

Chairperson’s report: / Please see Annex B for full report.
  • Annual Report
  • Events
  • School Uniform
  • Constitution
All attending the AGM were thanked for their attendance.
Treasurer’s report: / Treasurer Report 13.09.17 (Annex C)
We have had a good year with raising funds for the school. This has helped by setting up a separate fund-raising group. Parents are happy to help with fund raising without the responsibility of the PC but want to support the school.
This past year we have raised the money at the following
Halloween Party - £248.20
Christmas Fayre - £561.09
Christmas Cards - £79.60
Sponsor Obstacle Course - £337.31
Summer Fayre - £449.88
Breakfast Club - £60.01
We also raised £155.15 for Children In Need and £130.00 foe Red Nose Day
We donated treats at end of term – Christmas, easter & summer including a disco.
We also donated the following
£10 Friends of Tranent Children’s Gala
£100 – P3 Chicken Hatching Programme
£250 – P7 – WW2 Mobile Museum
£350 – Big Writing Subscription
£50 – Nursery Christmas Party
£1000 – New tablets for the Nursery
Accounts have been audited by Laura Hepburn, Sandersons Wynd PC Treasurer.
Closing Balance – Cash £50.98
Bank £1847.10 Total = £1898.08
Election of Office Bearers: / Chair K McFarlane
Vice Suzanne King
TreasurerKaren Masterton
Any other business: /
  • Mat storage cages for the gym hall
Costed and investigated, one likely option holds up to 14 mats each at £247.99
We will try an application to the ALDI sports fund for youth groups, suggested by J.Coyle, for funds.
Individual mats can be purchased from £40 each, but the authorised ELC supplier is £80 per mat.
  • Chairs for gym hall events
This will be investigated following the purchase of storage cages, and is likely to be the fold-up stackable type of seating. This will allow plenty of seating for large-number events held in the gymhall without the disruption of acquiring chairs as and when the classroom seating is available.
An athletic/ gymnastics style of sponsored events was proposed to create funds for this.
  • Fundraiser for Ricky King and family.
A fundraising event had been proposed previously in aid of school parent Ricky King and his family. Unfortunately, he sadly passed away during the school summer break before this was arranged.
A sing-along cinema night showing Mama Mia is taking place on 29/09/17. All staff and parish families are invited along, and all proceeds will be donated to Ricky King’s JustGiving funding page. / K. Macfarlane
Date of next meeting: / Monday 20th November 2017 at 7pm

ANNEX A

Parent Council Meeting

Wednesday 6pm

13th September 2017

HT Report

  1. Review Visit Update

Thursday 7th Sept review team frim ELC came back to engage in a follow up review to monitor any changes that have been put in place linked to the highlighted areas for development that were the outcome of the review in November last year.

3 areas for development:

  • 1: Improve approaches to planning, teaching and assessment
  • 2: Further develop the MATs to support children to have a clearer understanding of their strengths and next steps in learning
  • 3: Increase opportunities for staff to engage in effective moderation of assessment evidence underpinning judgements of a CfE level

Received the findings from the review at the weekend and the following progress was found

1: Improve approaches to planning, teaching and assessment

Progress:

  • Clear expectations for planning which is shared and understood by staff and is leading to greater consistency across the school.
  • Improved coherence between the planning and learning, teaching and assessment.
  • Flexibility and personalisation and choice are principles underpinning the approaches to planning leading to children having greater opportunities to lead their learning.
  • Teachers feel that planning has been streamlined and that this is leading to less bureaucracy.
  • Overall, there are improvements in the quality of the learning and teaching within the school. Planning for learning is more appropriate.
  • In the best lessons observed, all the children were engaged and there was clear evidence of the use of higher order questioning and high quality feedback. Pace and challenge and quality feedbackstill needs to be addressed in some classes.
  • The bundling of experiences and outcomes as part of the planning process is supporting teachers to plan assessments more effectively.
  • Teachers are developing a shared understanding of high quality assessments through shared planning opportunities and moderation.
  • There are improvements in planning for assessment across curriculum areas in order to better assess progress in areas other than literacy and numeracy.
  • More relevant high quality assessments are beginning to evidence progression in the MATs

Area for development:

  • Further develop the MATs to support children to have a clearer understanding of their strengths and next steps in learning.
  • 2: Further develop the MATs to support children to have a clearer understanding of their strengths and next steps in learning
  • The quality of assessment evidence is improving and is beginning to demonstrate progression more effectively in the MATs.
  • The learning targets within the MATs for individual children are explicitly used within classes to support learning and progression. Children ae able to discuss their learning targets and how they support them to progress within lessons.
  • There is a strong feeling amongst teachers that the MATS are more relevant and demonstrate progression more effectively.
  • The new format of the MATs has been received positively by parents.

Area for development:

  • Increase opportunities for staff to engage in effective moderation of assessment evidence underpinning judgements on achievement of a CfE level.
  • 3: Increase opportunities for staff to engage in effective moderation of assessment evidence underpinning judgements of a CfE level
  • Teachers have valued the opportunities to engage in moderation activities and say that they are more confident in making professional judgements on progress and achievement. Both groups of teachers particularly highlighted the moderation of writing and the use of the writing criteria to support this.
  • There is evidence of improvements in written work on the walls, particularly in the upper stages.
  • A growing confidence amongst teachers in relation to high quality assessment evidence which underpins judgements about progress.

Overall:

Areas of strength

  • Greater collegiate working resulting in a shared understanding and ownership of improvements in the school leading to increased consistency.
  • A strengthening of learning and teaching, particularly in the upper stages of the school.
  • Progress with improvements ably led by the headteacher.

Areas for Improvement

Taking account of the above the school should:

  • Continue to provide regular opportunities for in-school moderation, with a focus on the range and quality of assessment evidence.
  • Ensure that there is rigorous approach taken to monitoring and evaluating the work of classes across the school.
  • The quality of learning and teaching still needs to be a focus for improvement in some classes.
  • Continue to engage with the national benchmarks and the East Lothian curriculum frameworks to support the ongoing development of assessment and moderation within the school.
  1. Staffing –

Maternity – Mrs Hayes has confirmed that she will be returning to School after Christmas. More detail to follow once confirmed.

P7 – I am now able to confirm as of this afternoon that Miss Thorpe is the P7 CT for the remainder of the summer.

  1. Education Scotland

As a result of our review in November we have been selected by the Head of Education to have a visit from Education Scotland. They are coming into the school to speak to the children about how they are involved in our S.I.P and what they know about the NIF. This is great that we have been selected for this.

  1. School Improvement Plan Roles and Responsibilities

This year we are extending our children’s involvement in the work of the whole school to give them leadership roles, not just within the SIP but also the R&Rs. Children volunteer and have meetings with staff members to take forward aspects of school development and improvement. Purpose of this is to help develop their leadership skills but also support them in developing their skills for life, learning and work which is central to the principles of curriculum for excellence.

  1. PEF

I created a survey monkey survey that was sent out to all parents/carers last session. Taking on board the info that I collated and our own knowledge of the needs of the families of the school I created a proposal for the funds which I sent into ELC. This proposal is centred round having a PT in the school that oversees the learning lounge and works to target individual children and groups of children to support and challenge. The purpose of the government funding project is to ensure that we close the attainment gap and that children who live in poverty are not at a disadvantage. While I agree that this is highly important I also see the bigger picture where there are children in the school that do not live in poverty are not attaining as well as they could be so as a staff we thought it important that we also target these children. The PEF money £34,200 will be spent on getting a PT in the school that can manage and target reading, writing, numeracy and maths in a timely way to make a real difference. The interventions put in will be monitored and evaluated for their effectiveness as we are accountable and should be to raise attainment.

  1. Nursery Visit

There is now a new QIM in post and she is keen to get into our nurseries. A team from ELC is coming round the council and looking to view best practice with a review to ensuring more consistency throughout the authority. On Friday 22nd the team are coming to look at the work of the nursery – the planning, assessment, engagement of children, policies and procedures etc

We have the HGIOS4 – self- evaluation for the school in February the HGIOEL&CC document for self-evaluation that Emma and I have started to work on so that we can engage in continual evaluation so that the SIP can reflect the strengths and needs for the school and nursery.

  1. NIF – involve with Pupil Council – TC / SM – evaluated on our ability to involve parents.

ANNEX B

St Martin’s Primary School – Parent Council

Annual General Meeting Wednesday the13th of September 2017

Chairperson’s Report

1.As chair, I would like to thank everyone for attending tonight’s Annual General Meeting.

2.The Parent Council is an essential forum for all parents who would like to volunteer and get involved in helping the school to provide the best possible learning environment for all our children. Below are the main objectives of St Martin’s Parent Council over the past year.

These objectives are as follows:

a.To promote co-operation between parents and teachers in everything pertaining to the well-being of the school and the pupils.

b. To encourage the development of social activities among parents and teachers.

c.To support the nursery when requested to do so.

d.To co-operate with other Parent Councils within the cluster to the benefit of all.

3.During the 2016/17 session, the Parent Council did well to deliver and uphold these values and objectives. The following are examples of some of the tasks and activities that we are involved with:

  • Fundraising
  • East Lothian Association of Parent Councils.
  • Raising concerns from parents/carers with the school environment.
  • Working with the school to improve the facilities available.
  • Giving input where required to assist the school in making decisions.
  • Working with the HT and ELC to ensure building improvement requirements are acknowledged and being implemented on a rolling programme.
  • Parent Representatives for all stages.

4.At present, the parent council is supported by around 8 active committee members (plus 4 staff members), who generally meet once a quarter throughout the calendar year.

This year we have brought together a fundraising committee who are answerable to the PC and have PC members on board and reporting back to the main body of the PC. Many other parents get involved by assisting with the set up, organisation and running of the events. We have however, lost a number a few members through children progressing to High School and moving locations etc, so there is plenty of room for new members with new ideas.

5.Fundraising Events and Activities

Looking back over 2016/17 the Parent Council successfully organised and ran a number of events which provided both social and fund-raising opportunities within the school.

The following is a summary of the events and activities supported by the Parent Council:

  • Halloween Disco’s for P1-7.
  • Then our Christmas Fayre which was really successful, Santa’s Grotto proved to be a hit with the young and old alike. It was pointed out that a lot of the stall holders wares were rather expensive for the children and some families. We are holding our planning meeting on Friday the 22nd of September to resolve this and make the Fayre affordable to all.
  • Our last fundraising event of 2016 was the children’s amazing Christmas card designs.
  • We donated the prizes for the Annual Easter Raffle as well as providing prizes for the End of Term Treat.
  • Easter Treats were purchased for the whole school, including nursery.
  • We ran an indoor assault course to provide funds for playground games and purchased various games, giant connect four, giant chess/draughts, giant noughts and crosses, giant twister, boules, giant darts, wooden quoits, giant dominoes, tin can alley and giant snakes and ladders.
  • The Breakfast Club started off very disappointing low ticket sales. However this did improve on the days we ran the event. Whilst it may not have been a high profit earner, it certainly was a great social success with children from through out the school sharing breakfast, talking about the day ahead and all helping each other.
  • As hands on learning is a very important part of the curriculum, the PC funded two main learning events within the school.

The first being the Mobile Military Museum, this was a fantastic opportunity for the upper school to have hands on learning with the WWI/WWII topic. I was part of this in the afternoon and with my own TA/ACF Career spanning some 22+ years behind me, I found I was engrossed in the displays and the relaxed but poignant lessons provided by Ian Inglis. This was well worth the money and hopefully the PC will help fund this in the future.

Secondly was the very exciting arrival of the Chicken Eggs to P3, the whole school was absolutely buzzing with the incubation, hatching and naming of these fluffy wee chicks. It was amazing to see the excitement not only from the children, but the whole school community. A learning experience they will never forget.

  • Our final fundraising Event was the Summer Fayre – we decided to hold the event on the Friday straight after school. This proved to be a hit with parents/Staff and most importantly the children.
  • We funded Summer Disco’s for all classes within the school. These were held in St Martins Church Hall.

6.Contributions

Attached is the Treasurers report.

We have contributed to the school in many ways over the past year, this would not be possible without the continued support of the parents and staff and St Martin’s and their extended families.

7.School Issues

The Chair and HT have held various meetings regarding additional space and the décor of the school over the past year.

Some work has already been carried out in Gym Hall with the flooring being sanded, varnished and re-lined. This has made such an improvement to the Gym hall making it a much brighter and inviting learning space.

There are still outstanding work to be completed, this includes:

  • Outside rendering.
  • New blinds to be fitted to Gym Hall.
  • Library carpeting.
  • Skirting repainted.
  • The school building is on the rewiring programme so no wall paint work will be done until after this is completed.
  • Windows are replaced on a rolling programme so no replacements unless dangerous and therefore no new blinds to classrooms at present.

8.Thank You